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Top 10 Blogs for Writers – 2007/2008

December 11th, 2007, by Michael Stelzner

The nominations flooded in for our second annual contest. We were very pleased to see that blogs dedicated to writing have grown substantially.

The nominees have been carefully examined, with the greatest weight on the quality of their content. What follows are the top 10 blogs for writers. These blogs all provide rich content and extremely useful information for writers:

1. Copyblogger, by Brian Clark: Holding the number-one spot for the second year running, this site excels at teaching the art of writing.
2. Freelance Writing Jobs, by Deborah Ng: For writers seeking new work, this site is your sole destination and maintains a top spot in our contest from last year.
3. The Renegade Writer, by Linda Formichelli and Dianna Burell: Are you a freelance journalist looking for inspiration? Look no further.
4. Web Content Writer Tips, by James Chartrand and Harrison McLeod: With a focus on making more money as a writer, this blog is full of helpful how-to articles.
5. Web Writing Info, by Courtney Ramirez: This excellent blog looks at social networking and emerging web-based opportunities for writers.
6. The Golden Pencil, by Anne Wayman: Wayman, a second-year winner, examines how to go for the gold as a freelance writer.
7. Catalystblogger, by Jennifer Williamson: Williamson writes about the pains and trials writers face.
8. Freelance Parent, by Lorna Doone Brewer and Tamara Berry: Two moms provide excellent perspective on writing with a dash of parenting.
9. Write from Home, by Amy Derby: Derby provides fresh commentary and advice on writing.
10. Copywriter Underground, by Tom Chandler: This site, a second-year winner, provides regular doses of inspiration for copywriters.

Top 10 Websites - 2008

annual list of the 10 best planning, design, and development websites (along with a few honorable mentions) represents some of the top online resources for those interested in planning, design, and development.

We've listed the websites alphabetically, with host organization listed in italics if different from the website name. This list is based on nominations by Planetizen readers and staff, and judged against a common set of criteria, including standards of web accessibility.

Please post your comment on this list below, or contact us if you have nominations for next year's list.

City of Sound

www.cityofsound.com

The engrossing posts on this blog cover topics as various as singing roads and Antarctic substations – but somehow they all connect back to the shared themes of cities, architecture, design, media and culture. Penned by Dan Hill, a Swiss-born Englishman living in Sydney, Australia, City of Sound is consistently well-written, thoughtful, and surprising.

Florida Housing Data Clearinghouse

Shimberg Center for Affordable Housing, University of Florida
flhousingdata.shimberg.ufl.edu

Founded in 2000, the Florida Housing Data Clearinghouse's website is a great example for agencies who want to provide easy access to relevant data and statistics. Visitors to the site are greeted with a map of the state, and can drill down into individual cities and counties to retrieve figures affecting the availability of affordable housing. Users can find population growth projections, new construction and sales data, and housing and wage trends with well designed data access tools that allow comparisons by jurisdiction – handy for planners looking to measure up to the town down the road.

Ourbania

www.ourbania.com

Ourbania is a fun, interactive site that lets you explore the world through its buildings. Supported by an online community of "real estate enthusiasts," the site encourages visitors to post information about real life structures - from bridges to skyscrapers - to its online community. Users can add photos and notes, and plot a building's location using a Google-powered map. Like the design of certain building? Visitors can find out the architect, and see what other buildings they might have designed (provided they are uploaded to the site). With a large base of international members, Ourbania lets anyone who's interested in buildings connect and share information.

Post Carbon Cities

www.postcarboncities.net

With global warming increasingly on the minds of the people in charge of managing cities, many officials are looking to learn more about sustainable urban policies and practices. Post Carbon Cities has taken up the challenge of helping local governments understand and respond to the challenges of peak oil and global warming by bringing together a valuable set of resources on energy and climate change. The site's weekly blog provides overviews and advice on topics such as green building and transit-oriented development. A Planetizen reader favorite.

Rethink College Park

www.rethinkcollegepark.net/blog

David Daddio and Rob Goodspeed, two planning students at the University of Maryland, wanted to put their planning and technology skills to work to help the college town of College Park, Maryland. The result is Rethink College Park, a user-friendly website that provides community members with updated information on plans in the community, as well as a way to discuss proposals. The site features an active blog and an interactive development map that plots development projects and proposed transit routes.

StreetsBlog

NYC Streets Renaissance/Open Planning Project
www.streetsblog.org

StreetsBlog provides unparalleled coverage of transportation and planning issues in New York City, making it the envy of transportation advocates in cities across the country. Part of the NYC Streets Renaissance Campaign sponsored by the Open Planning Project, the website supports the group's efforts to reorient the city's transportation policies away from the car and towards cyclists and pedestrians. Daily updates on issues from congestion and parking pricing to road and sidewalk design make StreetsBlog a must read for anyone who's interested in creating sustainable transportation policies.

Survey LA

Office of Historic Resources, Department of City Planning, City of Los Angeles
preservation.lacity.org/survey

The SurveyLA website is part of the City of Los Angeles' Historic Resources Survey – a five-year effort partially funded by the Getty Foundation to identify all the historically significant buildings and structures in the city. In addition to providing information about the project to the public, the website allows visitors to participate firsthand in the multi-year planning effort by identifying historic resources through an online survey form. In addition, visitors can search for already surveyed properties, and view images of the city's historic and cultural landmarks. Full disclosure: Planetizen's parent company, Urban Insight, was hired by the City of Los Angeles and the Getty Foundation to develop the SurveyLA website.

Trulia Hindsight

hindsight.trulia.com

A side project of the real estate website Trulia.com, Hindsight uses home sales data to create animated maps of development over time. Using color coded dots on the street grids of modern urban areas - visitors can watch as the population of Plano, Texas doubles in a decade and examine the effect of growth controls on towns like Bolinas, CA. You'll be hard pressed to find a more vivid digital portrait of how cities grow.

Walk Score

www.walkscore.com

Looking to find a house where you don't have to get in your car every time you want to get a gallon of milk? That's where Walk Score comes in. Enter your address, and it finds the distance to the nearest grocery stores, post offices, restaurants, libraries, movie theaters and other useful destinations, and then assigns a score based on the walkability of your location. Walk Score is the perfect tool for anyone looking to find a home or office in a walkable neighborhood.

Top 10 Best Presentations Ever

Sarah and I were talking about great presentations we’d seen or heard about and she came up with an idea for a Top 10 list. Here’s our take on the Top 10 Best Presentations Ever (in no particular order…and if you have others to add, we’d love to hear about them):

Steve Jobs introduces the Macintosh in 1984. Back then, Steve dressed like Tucker Carlson circa 2006, but black tee shirts and jeans or double-breasted jacket and bow tie, this Macintosh unveiling rocked the house. Steve has perfected the sense of theater, and none is better than this one. Check out how he pulls the 3.5-inch floppy from his jacket pocket. Flair, baby.

Dick Hardt’s Identity 2.0 presentation at OSCON 2005. Hardt’s preparation and energy sets the standard for presentation quality. He uses hundreds of slides in this 20-minute, high buzz work. Heck, I didn’t even care about virtual identity and still watched this one five or six times. It has a chance of becoming my presentation Dirty Dancing (which I’ve seen 100 times), where “nobody puts baby in the corner.”

Guy Kawasaki’s Art of the Start speech at TiECon 2006. In the 40-minute presentation (PDF of slides here), Kawasaki talks about innovation and business evangelism. When he talks about “Make Mantra” it’s well worth listening to. The beauty of his speech is that he uses a Top 10 approach and is unafraid to speak plainly and with great humor (which is sadly lost in public speaking).

Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech in 1963. Who can argue that Dr. King’s speech in Washington on August 28, 1963 was anything but brilliant and changed the trajectory of America? But the rheotrical beauty of this speech is also unparalleled. At a time when our language has been reduced to the common, it’s essential to look upon the preparation and thought that Dr. King used for this monumetal speech.

Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture talk at the 2002 Open Source Conference. The master of the simple slides shows us how it’s done. And since, as he says, this is his 100th time for this talk, he has this bad boy down solid. Even though this talk is from 2002, his slide presentation style is still as fresh today as Axe Body Spray.

Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink presentation at SXSW 2005. I’ve seen Gladwell talk a couple of times in person, and he’s brilliant. He talks fast and he makes points by telling stories. He doesn’t lecture, he paints a picture. All this from one of the foremost thinkers of our age. Gladwell makes the points, “We can do more with less. And there are real dangers in giving people too much information.” Hey, that reminds me, Where are his slides? Oh, he’s presenting without slides. How about that?

Tom Peters presents A Ham Sandwich in 1990. Okay, this isn’t a Peters presentation, but the guy has so much passion that he can make a ham sandwich sound compelling. I saw him a few times in the late 80s during the height of the Thriving on Chaos days, and that was some rallying cry. In the link here, Peters outlines what makes a great presentation. No one can leave a Tom Peters presentation saying they weren’t energized and entertained.

Seth Godin talks about Marketing at Google in 2006. “Technology doesn’t win, but it sure gives you a chance at marketing.” Godin knows the story, lived it, and tells it. He also uses slides to his advantage to persuade his audience that he’s right. Check out the slide he calls “No one cares about you.” Is there anything wrong with getting people to laugh and think at the same time?

Andy Kaufman sings along to Mighty Mouse on SNL in 1975. Mies van der Rohe would have been proud, because Kaufman showed the essence of “less is more” in this Saturday Night Live skit. I’m not suggesting that your presentations should be filled renditions of superhero songs, but negative space is important, and this presentation was both ahead of its time and pointed in its simplicity.

Rupert Everett sings I Say a Little Prayer for You in MBFW in 1997. Okay, this is just one of our favorites and isn’t exactly a “presentation.” In fact, it’s from a movie - My Best Friend’s Wedding. But isn’t a lot of what we do a “presentation” designed to persuade people to believe our story? The beauty of this one is the lead-in and then the music. Oh, the power of music. And if you haven’t seen this movie, the last scene is just fantastic.